Lemon Grass
Our customers use lemongrass because of its distinctive citrusy aroma, functional properties, and versatility in both food and beverage applications. Lemongrass provides a fresh, slightly lemon-like flavor with herbal notes, making it popular in soups, sauces, teas, and ready-to-drink beverages, especially in Asian-inspired products. It also contains natural compounds with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, which can help with preservation and support wellness-focused marketing claims. Lemongrass is commonly processed into extracts, essential oils, pastes, and dried forms, allowing for longer shelf life and consistent use in large-scale manufacturing. Additionally, its unique flavor profile helps brands create more complex and globally inspired products that stand out in the market.
Lemon Grass can be supplied as organic upon request
Botanical: Cymbopogon Citratus
Intense, Floral Lemon Flavor
Lemon grass is a tall, perennial grass native to tropical regions of Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, and is typically processed into lemon grass puree. It grows in dense clumps with long, narrow, blade-like leaves and a thick, fibrous stalk at the base. The plant has a strong citrus-like aroma, especially in its stalks, which are the most commonly used part. Lemongrass thrives in warm, humid climates and is often cultivated in gardens or farms for culinary and traditional uses. It has been used for centuries in various cultures and is an important plant in many tropical regions.
Lemon grass (Cymbopogon) is a tall, perennial tropical grass belonging to the Poaceae family. Indigenous to South and Southeast Asia, lemongrass is globally celebrated across the food, beverage, craft brewing, and culinary sectors for its intense lemon-citrus aroma, crisp herbal undertones, and clean, aromatic punch, achieved entirely without the sharp citric acidity associated with citrus fruit juices.
The signature sensory profile of lemongrass is driven by its high natural concentration of citral (an isomeric blend of the acyclic monoterpene aldehydes geranial and neral), complemented by myrcene, geraniol, and citronellol. In commercial processing, species selection and mechanical stalk handling dictate flavor purity and texture:
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West Indian Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus – Culinary Benchmark): The primary commercial species utilized for food and beverage puree processing. It features thick, succulent basal stalks (pseudostems) with a rounded, sweet-lemony profile and lower terpene bitterness. It produces a smooth, aromatic lemon grass puree with exceptional stability across thermal processing.
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East Indian Lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexuosus): Characterized by slightly thinner stalks and higher overall essential oil density. It offers a sharper, more pungent citrus profile with strong herbal top notes, frequently utilized for specialized flavor compounding and extraction bases.
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Stalk Selection & Fiber Milling: Raw lemon grass is naturally fibrous and tough due to high cellulose and lignin structural content. Processing requires stripping the dry, fibrous outer leaf sheaths and woody leaf tips, isolating the tender, pale-white-to-light-green inner stem cores. The stalks are washed, steam-blanched, and micro-milled through specialized colloid mills or micro-cutters to break down long fibers into a silky, pumpable lemon grass puree.
Brothers International partners with origin processors equipped with ultra-fine particle reduction systems and rapid thermal stabilization lines, delivering a homogenous, flowable puree that disperses evenly without stringy residue or flavor loss.
Global Sourcing Through the Brothers International Network:
Lemon grass flourishes in warm, humid tropical and subtropical climates with abundant sunshine, high rainfall, and well-drained, sandy loam soils. Because fresh-cut lemongrass stalks lose volatile essential oils rapidly through dehydration and surface oxidation, field-to-processing integration is critical. Brothers International connects North American manufacturers to premier global growing basins through our established network of audited suppliers.
We source high-grade lemongrass puree from leading agricultural hubs:
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Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand & Indonesia): Vietnam (the Mekong Delta and Central Highlands) and Thailand are the world’s leading commercial processing centers for culinary Cymbopogon citratus. Origin processors operate state-of-the-art washing, micro-milling, and aseptic packaging facilities situated directly adjacent to contracted farming cooperatives.
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South Asia (India): The historical origin of lemon grass puree, offering extensive acreage of organic certified plantations and high-oil processing facilities.
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Central & South America (Guatemala & Costa Rica): Strategic sourcing regions providing geographical diversification, USDA Organic certification, and short ocean freight transit times to North American ports.
By coordinating supply across Southeast Asia, India, and Central America, Brothers International insulates your manufacturing facility against localized monsoon disruptions, regional agricultural shortfalls, and ocean shipping bottlenecks.
Harvest Cycles & Continuous Supply Management:
In tropical equatorial zones, lemongrass is a fast-growing, multi-cut crop that can be harvested every 60 to 90 days, yielding 3 to 4 continuous harvest cycles per year. Harvesters cut the stalks 10 to 15 centimeters above ground level, allowing the root system to regenerate rapidly. Once cut, the stalks are transported immediately to local processing facilities for trimming, blanching, and pulping.
Managing these rolling harvest windows and international cold-chain logistics is a core competency of Brothers International. Our operations and logistics teams oversee multi-quarter inventory allocations, temperature-monitored maritime shipping, USDA/FDA import clearances, C-TPAT supply chain security, and strategic warehousing across North America. Whether your facility requires frozen 5-gallon pails for pilot R&D batches or aseptic 55-gallon drums for high-volume commercial production, our network guarantees ready inventory year-round.
Rigorous Quality Control, Traceability & Compliance:
Processing lemongrass into a commercially viable, industrial-grade puree demands strict technical controls—specifically regarding fiber particle size reduction, steam-blanching for polyphenol oxidase (PPO) deactivation, essential oil quantification, and microbial safety (especially regarding spore-forming bacteria common in soil-contact botanicals). Every supplier within the Brothers International network undergoes a comprehensive auditing process to guarantee complete supply chain traceability, sustainable farming practices, fair labor standards, and strict compliance with USDA, FDA, and international food safety standards.
Through our network, we deliver lemongrass ingredients backed by complete technical documentation and top-tier industry certifications, including GFSI benchmarks (BRC, SQF, FSSC 22000), USDA Organic (NOP), Kosher, Non-GMO, and Halal standards. Our quality assurance protocols include testing for particle size distribution (sieve analysis), pesticide residues, heavy metals, microbial validation (Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli negative), Bostwick viscosity, essential oil content, and pH standardization.
The Brothers International
Quality Promise
Brothers International and its 4 divisions, Brothers Ingredients, Dennick Fruit Source, Hosh International and Food Partners, are trusted global importers of premium ingredients to major food and beverage manufacturers in North America. We deliver consistent quality and supply across every format the industry demands. Our Lemon Grass is sourced from the earth’s prime growing regions where farming expertise, climate and soil composition come together to produce Lemon Grass of exceptional caliber. All of our suppliers undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure we work with only the highest-quality processors and can fully guarantee traceability, sustainability, and compliance with all international regulations.
Each of our divisions has a specialized operations team to manage shipments and coordinate with customers and suppliers. They work closely with our in-house customs team to ensure efficient clearance, and collaborate with the USDA and FDA to maintain full regulatory compliance. This ensures your ingredients move seamlessly through every stage of import, arriving on time and ready for production with complete confidence. With decades of sourcing expertise and a strong commitment to customer success, you can count on Brothers International to deliver the premium ingredients your products require.
Industry Glossary
A Reference Guide for Fruit Ingredient Terminology
Check out our glossary for a consolidated reference of commonly used terminology across the global fruit ingredient industry. It provides straightforward definitions and context for the language and concepts referenced throughout the industry.
